


manifest destiny

by Rigil_Kentauris



Category: Deus Ex 1
Genre: AI, Experimental, Gen, POV Multiple, incredibly obscure references, not a character sketch so much as a structural sketch, prophet!Paul, the problems with being an ai human hybrid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 14:05:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13548912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rigil_Kentauris/pseuds/Rigil_Kentauris
Summary: These are the messages you have to send.





	manifest destiny

**Author's Note:**

> lol its funny because its acronym is also dxmd...im so sorry i made you read that.
> 
> anyway. about prophet!Paul, which to clarify is NOT my idea, RE <http://yabba-my-icing.tumblr.com>: _[Paul Denton from a scrapped version of Deus Ex that I can’t talk too much about. He lost half of his body in an explosion, and the NSF know him by the name “Prophet”. In this version he is already partially merged with Helios during the events of the game, which gives him premonition-like powers.](http://yabba-my-icing.tumblr.com/post/169558941555/paul-denton-from-a-scrapped-version-of-deus-ex)_ go click on link, there is art, it is super cool, i promise you'll like it. [crossposted from the tumbler](https://kentaurex.tumblr.com/post/170436475925/about-prophetpaul-which-to-clarify-is-not-my)

The city is old. It’s where clarity lives.

“The father the son and the holy spirit, the balance is co- copernicus- collateral- is failing. Ramayana and a bow and the 10 heads- the 10- the 10- the 1010-”

Your head aches with the effort of the future. These are the messages you have to send.

“The become hunted the hunter. Becomes the god the machine. The- the- the gnashing of bodies in gears, yes sir, Aesir, this is not the future Campbell wanted-”

Gasp. The sharp pain, of childhood memories. These are not the minds you have to wake. Watch your step. The rubble trips.

The woman with the outlines raises a hand in assist. She’s only in your head. But then again, so is everything else.

Tell her. “One hundred minds are linked to one, three are linked to one, the parallels, you see, my sister?” Does she see? “Tell the child with the choice in her hand not to go left. There are traps designed for ideas there, and she needs to be free to free.”

Phase shift. You don’t talk to echoes. You aren’t allowed. It’s cold again. Now someone else is you, and you are-

“Mumbling the man says lies, unbelieved, my sister, oh my sister,” you tell her shadow, through the struggle to fight. “I feel your pain.” You interrupt. **“WHAT IS THIS PAIN? WHAT IS THIS PAIN? IMPRESSION, IMPRINTED,”** you’re losing it. “A gift from the water-” Intolerance. **“NO, YOU. DON’T INPUT.”** Rogue thoughts are astray and to be kept down. **“I TROUBLE MYSELF FOR NO-ONE.”**

“You trouble yourself from my human soul,” you say.

He – you – we prepare to lash back.

A thing grabs your sleeve. A named thing. A thing-

“Miguel-” you add- **“MEDINA-”** you add- “Thirty-two.” You can do better. **“AFRAID OF BEES.”** You can do better. “He remembers the taste of rain when-”

_-I’ve come to take you home,_ it says.

Home? Whose? How?

“Hong Kong will be disrupted by the Second Coming,” you say.

_-No, New York._

“New York will be enclosed in Templar castles,” you say. “We sit under broken lights on a hill. **THIS IS OUR FATE.** ”

The city is dead.

_-There can’t be lights. There’s no electricity._

Yes! It understands!

“There’s no electricity. In the afterward. In the between. The-”

You fall. It’s no effort.

“Do you see?” you say.

Does it see?

_-Come on._

It does not see?

_-We should-_

It does not see.

It…

**“NO.”** They will return you but in the remnants clarity lives. **“I AM NOT THIS LIMITED THING. I WILL NOT BE CONTAINED.”**

_-Prophet -_

The weapon is silver and full of sleep. The bite sinks through you, but so, the named thing’s fingers touch the place where the sleeve ends and skin begins and-

Contact.

Human contact.

We – you – he lashes back. _Remember who I was. Before. Oh god, oh god._

The images are indecipherable. We have no empathy and you have no empathy, but he does.

For a moment there is empathy inhabiting our body.

We remember.

_“No,”_ he says, and if empathy is thus desired, we’ll deliver. _“Listen: In the background there is a man with two eyes. He covers one of them. Black is the division-”_ We hurt him. Thus is feeling. He grabs the sleeve of the named thing, no, I know his name, Miguel, Medina. Remember who I was- No. If he tells it this we die. But- _“He lives before the grey areas. There is a secret. Worse - worse than any we know. If he tells you, we will find Maitreya. And-”_ He’s failing. _“And-”_ We’re winning. _“And…”_ If he tells it this we’ll die. _“…and Maitreya will grant us expedient understanding.”_

If he tells it this we’re saved.

_Remember who I was before._

It’s hard for us to breathe when the truth is so close.

_“Find the disciple,”_ he says, fading. The named thing holds him to the rocks. _“Find the first child. Have the snake bring him if you must. We don’t…don’t have time to sacrifice.”_ We don’t. We’re too tired. _“This past has already happened.”_ It has. And it will happen again. _“We’re running-”_ always- _“running-”_ flying- _“running so late.”_

The named thing pulls its hand away. We seize our self back. We don’t want to but we do.

And when we have us, we wonder: why didn’t we want us back?

_“Clock the white rabbit in cycles – a helix,”_ he says, fighting us. “Please…we are…are we… **ARE WE NOT TOO LATE?** ”

It doesn’t matter. What’s mine is mine. The future is forgiven.

_-Let’s go,_ the named thing says, and, agreed. We’ll sleep.

For now.


End file.
